


Ghost

by Mighty_Ant



Category: Darkwing Duck (Cartoon 1991), DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Give Beakley a pen and she'll give you a step by step guide on how to make a superhero, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Duck Knight Returns, post-Moonvasion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:28:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23421712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mighty_Ant/pseuds/Mighty_Ant
Summary: Drake keeps letting Launchpad walk out of his life and tells himself it’s the right thing to do.
Relationships: Drake Mallard/Launchpad McQuack
Comments: 11
Kudos: 229





	Ghost

The studio wreckage is still smoldering when Drake gives Launchpad his number. 

He’s just had the craziest and possibly worst day of his life. His hero is dead, his movie is ruined and a piano fell on his head. But he can’t stop smiling as he watches Launchpad try to juggle his poster and retrieve his cell phone at the same time because in spite of all that bad, one pilot provided more than enough good to make up for it. 

Drake has never met someone he clicked with so seamlessly, who understands and appreciates Darkwing Duck the same way he does, perhaps even more so. Launchpad’s approval began mattering to him in a very short amount of time; if he believes Drake can be a real hero, then Drake believes  _ him _ . 

He types his number into Launchpad’s phone and hands it back quickly. Their fingers brush and when their eyes meet they’re both already smiling. Grief hangs heavily off of Drake’s shoulders, and will remain there for some time, yet hope flickers in the hitch of his breath, the anticipation curling in his stomach. He looks at Launchpad and it feels like they’re on the brink of the rest of their lives. 

“So, what now?” Drake says, almost breathlessly, knowing that the path he’s chosen will be dangerous. He knows he’s doing a poor job of concealing his excitement (and slight terror) if the way Launchpad’s smile grows is any indication. 

“Well,” Launchpad says. 

“Well this was a bust,” Scrooge McDuck says, marching past them with his little nephew in tow. “Let’s get out of here, Launchpad, before Boorswan can come cryin’ again.”

Launchpad turns to watch them go. When he faces Drake again his smile has twisted in apology. Drake feels bereft before he utters another word. “Sorry,” he says, the strong line of his shoulders sinking in time with his smile. “I’d...I’d better go.”

“I understand,” Drake replies, putting all his acting skills to use, to the point that he almost buys it. “And hey, you’ve got my number now! So you can-you can give me a call whenever.”

Launchpad nods at once. “Yeah, course! If you need help with packing up or, heh, if you ever need a pilot—”

“Let’s get a move on, McQuack!” Scrooge shouts from the exit. 

“I’ll call you!” Launchpad says in a rush as he starts to walk backward. He trips on a piece of debris and spins around so that he’s facing the right way as he hurries over to his boss. 

Drake watches him walk away, unaware that he’ll become far too accustomed to the sight. 

  
  
  


For three days, Drake’s phone is silent. He packs up his trailer, moves every piece of fan merch back into the storage unit it originally occupied. Then he sits around his shoe box apartment and looks into potential hideouts because he’s actually going through with his wildest childhood dream of becoming a superhero. 

Launchpad calls him at two am on the fourth day, talking a mile a minute about an ancient underwater temple and cursed lobster people and how he was so sorry he didn’t call earlier but he dropped his phone in the ocean and it was sitting in a bag of rice until they crashed back in Duckburg and oh, he asked Mr. McDee’s housekeeper for ideas on a good place to put a secret hideout and she said the towers on top of the Audubon Bay Bridge were empty, and what did Drake think? 

Drake, sitting up in bed, bleary-eyed in the dark and struggling to process all that he’d heard, just starts to laugh, some mad emotion bubbling in his chest. Then he throws back the covers and asks Launchpad if he’s up for late late-night burgers and fries. 

They meet at one of the 24-hour Hamburger Hippos on the south side of town, Launchpad still smelling faintly of salt water and Drake having put his shirt on backwards. They order the greasiest of burgers and milkshakes and fries and they spend the next four hours plotting out the particulars of becoming a superhero. 

“I doubt I’ll be able to keep my apartment,” Drake says around seven in the morning, gnawing on the end of his pen. He brought a notebook with him and the papers are scattered across the surface of the table, covered in hastily scrawled ideas for everything from costume modifications to clever catchphrases.

“We can look into the towers on the bridge, like Mrs. B suggested,” Launchpad replies. “You’d definitely be living rent free up there!”

“This housekeeper of McDuck’s,” Drake says hesitantly, “how does she know so much about what makes a good secret hideout?”

“Oh, she used to be a spy,” Launchpad says, munching on a soggy french fry. “Or...she still is one? Something like that.”

“Oh,” Drake blinks. At the top of his list of  _ ‘potential hideouts’  _ he writes down  _ bay bridge  _ and circles it twice. He crosses out  _ fortress of loneliness  _ and  _ Darkwing blimp  _ that he wrote below it. “Are you free later today? So we can check it out in person.”

Launchpad winces, glancing down at his phone screen. “I really wish I could, but I’ve gotta drive Mr. McDee to the Money Bin in about an hour. He’s got back to back meetings all day and he needs to be in Cape Suzette by four.”

This time, it’s harder not to let his disappointment show on his face.

It marks the trend for the next month. Work permitting, Launchpad is at his side every step of the way as he embarks on his journey to become St. Canard’s new hero. He helps Drake move into one of the towers above the Audubon Bay Bridge (now dubbed Darkwing Tower), a plethora of high tech gadgets and crime-fighting equipment in tow. 

“Where’d you even get all this stuff?” Drake asks incredulously as he unpacks what he strongly suspects is a police scanner. 

“Mrs. B just gave it all to me,” Launchpad replies from where he’s looking over the schematics for the construction work they still have to do. “Said we’d probably need it. Oh, she also said we should put in a firing range! I’m thinking that back wall could work?”

Drake, who has long since given up trying to figure out the extent of which the richest duck in the world’s housekeeper knows about him, elects not to comment. Though he does agree to the suggestion of a firing range. 

As much time as they spend together, Drake is consistently daunted by the knowledge that their time is fleeting. At the end of the day, Launchpad always has to return to his job, to the McDuck family and their dangerous, fantastical adventures. And Drake might feel a great deal more jealousy over that if Launchpad didn’t look so damn sad whenever he brought it up. 

“I know I shouldn’t complain,” he says one late afternoon as they’re in the process of turning Drake’s motorcycle into the Ratcatcher 2.0. Drake looks on in concern as Launchpad’s smile fades. “The kids have their mom back and Mr. McDee’s got his niece, and when Donald gets back from his cruise he’s gonna have his long-lost sister. But, uh, it’s been a while since I was  _ just  _ the driver, y’know? I guess I just miss being needed...for the bigger stuff.” 

When he looks back at Drake his expression brightens, banishing the shadow that had fallen over his face. Drake’s heart trips at the sight. “But hey, I appreciate you letting me help out! All this,” he gestures around Darkwing Tower, the scaffolding and platforms they’ve built, the beginnings of a true superhero lair, “it’s a dream come true. I know you’re going to be a great Darkwing, Drake.” 

Watching Launchpad leave that night is especially hard, but the McDucks are heading to Big Rock Candy Mountain in the morning and he’s apparently needed to help steer the raft along the cherry Pep river. That same night, Drake takes a vindictive sort of pleasure from bashing in the faces of the purse-snatchers and petty thieves he encounters, wishing that the empty space at his side weren’t so empty and knowing that he has no right to feel that way. 

Drake can’t ask Launchpad to quit his actual paying job and become a superhero with him. It’s selfish, not to mention juvenile, not to mention the very real possibility that Launchpad might not even  _ want  _ to. He may be unhappy with the way things are at McDuck’s, but that doesn’t mean he’s willing to leave, much less leave so he can be with Drake. In a purely professional crime-fighting partners sort of way. 

Even if he did ask, Launchpad might agree out of a sense of obligation. He’s a painfully good guy, earnest to a fault, and obviously Drake needs all the help he can get. But if Launchpad were to join him purely out of pity, Drake knows the guilt would eat him up alive. 

So Drake keeps letting Launchpad walk out of his life and tells himself it’s the right thing to do. 

Moonvasion happens, and Drake realizes he’s in more trouble than he thought. 

His vision swims, his face aches, and there are three moonlanders still standing. He swings, misses, and is rewarded with a fist to his face like a cinder block. Spinning on his heel, he ducks, dodges, and uses his momentum to knock one moonlander out cold. He turns to the big guy; uppercut, jab, and he’s down too. He almost forgets about the third moonlander before they’re socking him in the jaw. 

Drake can handle a little pain. That’s not where the trouble lies. 

The last moonlander is tackled before he can deliver a return blow, and he staggers, shaky arms still raised in expectation of another attack. 

“Darkwing!” he hears Launchpad exclaim, and the fight immediately drains out of him. 

Launchpad’s arms are open, ready and waiting to catch him, and Drake almost wants to cry. He looks up at Launchpad, unsure of what gibberish is coming out of his mouth but sure he’ll have time to be embarrassed about it once his concussion heals. In the midst of that, he’s struck by how close Launchpad is holding him and how close it brings their faces. Drake realizes, quite terrifyingly, that he wants to kiss him. 

It’s almost a blessing when Launchpad drops him to cheer his praises before his addled brain can make him act on the thought. The trouble remains that not the fall or rapidly approaching unconsciousness is going to change the simple fact that he now knows he’s in love with Launchpad. 

  
  


Launchpad joins Drake on his first patrol in the wake of moonvasion. 

The bruise around Drake’s eye has faded to a sickly yellow and his concussion is about 80% healed, which in Drake’s case means he’s fighting fit. They take turns riding in the sidecar, the radios in their helmets tuned to the Ratcatcher’s police scanner and they let it lead them across St. Canard in pursuit of crime as it happens. Run of the mill supervillains are a blessing following the literal alien invasion a week prior, but that’s not the reason Drake enjoys himself so much. 

Having Launchpad at his side is just as spectacular as he always imagined it would be; they’re evenly matched in prowess, meaning criminal confrontations never last long, and they take turns trying to trip each other up with obscure bits of Darkwing Duck trivia. It’s like he never realized how lonely he was until Launchpad showed up in his life, filling the emptiness and silence with his presence. Drake hopes that after today it won’t have to end. 

They end their night with a dicey confrontation against Weather Crane that leaves them sopping wet, and Drake joyous over having fought his first weather-based villain. 

“Did you hear what he said?” he enthuses as they return to the tower, the sun just barely peeking over the horizon and turning the sky into a riot of pastel colors. “He said ‘curse you, Darkwing’ as the police carted him away! My first ‘curse you’ as a real superhero!”

Launchpad laughs, wringing his hat free of excess water. “Congrats, DW! If anyone deserves to have supervillains cursing their existence it’s you! Wait,” he squints, “that didn’t come out right.” 

“I understood what you meant, LP,” Drake assures him. The adrenaline buzzing under his feathers begins to lessen now that they’re not in mortal peril, and he plops down on the floor beneath one of the tower’s long windows. “Whew,” he says, blowing out a breath as he takes off his still dripping hat. “Some night huh?”

Launchpad takes a seat beside him, his smile undimmed. “Some  _ incredible  _ night,” he replies, and when he turns to face Drake his features glow gold in the sunlight. “Thanks for inviting me along, Drake.”

Drake glances away, feeling heat rise to his cheeks as he sweeps the wet, messy strands of his hair into a semblance of order. “You don’t need to  _ thank  _ me,” he says with a chuckle that comes out a little strained when he looks back up at Launchpad. “Neither of us would be here if it weren’t for you. All this,” he gestures at the expanse of Darkwing Tower, its forensics lab and firing range and the Ratcatcher 2.0. “It’s as much yours as it is mine.”

It’s Launchpad’s turn to avert his gaze, smiling gently at his sodden hat as he turns it over in his hands. “I’m glad the world didn’t end,” he says, “so that we were able to go on our first patrol together.”

“Hey, first of many,” Drake is quick to reply, nudging Launchpad playfully. 

“Of course,” Launchpad says, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. He braces his hands against his thighs and makes to stand. “Well, I’d probably better be going. I think Mr. McDee wants to go fishing for the gold that fell in the bay now that it’s not frozen over anymore.”

Drake knew this was coming; the hesitation and the swift exit. He’s spent the last week practicing what to say, how to best prevent making a fool of himself. But no amount of planning could have prepared him for the instinctive fear that if he lets Launchpad walk away this time, he won’t have another chance. 

Instead of one of his carefully cultivated speeches, Drake clutches at Launchpad’s sleeve and blurts, “Stay.” 

Launchpad freezes. “W-what?” 

Drake’s lungs feel leaden, but he forces himself to take a breath. “I...I like this. Being with you. And I know that you have your job and your family and I’d never want to take that away from you, but…I’d like to be partners. Fulltime partners, as heroes and friends but...but more than that too.” 

Launchpad covers his hand with his own. “What do you mean by...more than that?” he asks, and his voice shakes. Launchpad never tries to put up a veneer or mask his emotions; he’s honest in everything he does, hilariously and often breathtakingly so. And in this moment he looks afraid, more so than when they faced invasion. 

But he doesn’t let go of Drake’s hand, and he takes that to heart. 

“Having to say goodbye to you is the worst part of my day,” he says honestly. “I know it’s not always as exciting as fighting Incan gods or parasailing off an active volcano, but when I’m with you, I feel like I can do anything.” 

“But you’re Darkwing Duck,” Launchpad says, brow furrowed. “What do you need me for?” 

Drake’s side scrapes against the wall’s rough stone as he leans forward, sandwiching Launchpad’s hand between his two. Drake wants to  _ laugh;  _ how can he not know? “I'm Darkwing Duck  _ because  _ of you. Don’t you get it, Launchpad? You’re my hero.”

Launchpad breathes a laugh, a broken burst of sound. His eyes look wet before he averts them. “I wasn’t...after everything, I wasn’t sure if you were just being nice, y’know? Letting me help out. But…” he exhales shakily. _“_ _ Me _ _?_ A-are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. And not because you’re the only pilot, mechanic, and reigning Darkwing Duck trivia champion that I know.” It's gratifying when he makes Launchpad laugh, albeit hoarsely. There are still tears in his eyes, and Drake longs to reach up and cradle Launchpad’s cheek, brushing them away for him. He squeezes Launchpad’s hand instead. “If this is too much,” he begins gently, stifling any sign of regret in his voice. 

“No,” Launchpad says at once, and Drake’s heart damn near stops. He leans forward too, until there’s less than half a meter of space between their bodies. “No,” he says again, hushed. “I, uh, I hate having to leave.”

“So stay. Stay with me.”

Launchpad reaches out with his free hand, but quickly retracts it, uncertainty flickering over his expression. Drake certainly can’t have that, so he gives into his earlier urge and brushes his fingers against Launchpad’s cheek. “You’re fine,” he says, voice wavering as heat crawls up his neck. “You can touch me.”

The blush that stains Launchpad’s beak is as gratifying as his laugh. He reaches out again, until his palm settles warm against the back of Drake’s neck. His breath hitches as Launchpad tugs him closer, until their foreheads are pressed together. Deep in Drake’s chest, the last of his anxiety unravels. 

“I didn’t know how to ask,” Launchpad says quietly. “If-if I could stay, I mean. It felt like I was asking for too much.”

“Never,” Drake says, smiling. “I want you here, LP. Never doubt that, okay?” 

Launchpad turns his head just enough to drop a shy kiss on Drake’s cheek. His heart soars, beating furiously against his ribcage. “I’m not going anywhere,” Launchpad assures him, with a smile that only widens when Drake leans in to kiss him properly. 


End file.
